This study investigated how pre-service music teachers’ (PMTs) attitudes toward improvisation relate to their self-efficacy. A questionnaire was completed by 123 PMTs from ten music teacher education programs, followed by semi-structured interviews with ten participants. A PLS-SEM indicated that attitude toward studying and teaching significantly predicted self-efficacy for improvisation, whereas the attitude toward inclusion of improvisation showed no significant effect. Mediation analysis further confirmed that improvisation self-efficacy served as a key variable linking attitudes and self-efficacy for teaching improvisation. Qualitative analyses provided explanatory depth by revealing how mastery experiences gradually transformed fear into enjoyment, how teaching-oriented motivation stimulated both personal learning and classroom application, and how endorsing the inclusion of improvisation did not automatically lead to confidence without sufficient preparation. This study contributes to understanding how attitudes and self-efficacy interact and offers pedagogical insights for strengthening pre-service teachers’ readiness to incorporate improvisation into their learning and teaching.
Hua et al. (Thu,) studied this question.